Munich to Paris

Munich to Paris

When I originally booked it, the flight from Munich to Paris was a bit of a concern for me, both from the time involved (taking essentially the whole day to go such a short distance), plus the fact I had booked a ticket on eDreams (a Spanish travel agency I knew nothing about), not to mention that it was an Air Berlin/Air France transfer ticket with just an hour and 10 minutes layover in Dusseldorf. Still, as I have said before, this was actually a better option for me than taking a train (I still can't understand that…), so I decided to give it a try.

It's ironic that a distance this short should take the whole day, but since it was a 3:00 PM flight, I felt I decided to leave the hotel at noon, meaning there was not enough time to do anything that morning other than sleep in a bit. On the arrival side, it was scheduled for 6:40 PM, which I predicted would mean that I would be in the hotel about 8:00 PM. Train alternatives, as mentioned earlier, were surprisingly no better, and at least this option would get me directly from one airport to the other, without the Beauvais risk at the start of the trip. Oh well, another day shot to travel. Then again, though the layover was tight, this should not be too much of a problem as I was flying on a German airline leaving from a German airport into Dusseldorf, to connect with a French airline; by all conventional wisdom, my German flight would be on time, if not early, while the French would be late.

Well, as this trip seems to have shown me, what should make sense does not. I arrived at the Munich airport over two and a half hours early, only to have the flight leave 35 minutes late, with no explanation. Though we made up some time in the air, my 70 minute layover (tight to begin with) was well less than an hour when I landed. And, to add to that, since I had to transfer airlines, I had to leave the secure area to checkin at the front counter, then go through screening again. I figured if I made it on time, my checked bag certainly would not. Fortunately, I arrived at the gate as boarding was in progress, the plane left early, and we all (check in bag included) made it to CDG right on time. French airlines 1, Gemans 0.

One quirky side note: Like most men's rooms in Europe, the Munich airport had a vending machine for condoms. Not much of a surprise, except that in addition to the anticipated European version of Trojans, this sported a completely different option: Die Künstliche Vagina (Travelling Vagina, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Künstliche_Vagina) in the condom machine. I wish I had had the four Euros in coins in my pocket to buy one of those, purely as a novelty item! (No, plastic substitutes for the real thing never interested me even a little bit, whether we are talking blow up lovie dolls or giant dildos!)

In any case, delays and provocative plastics offerings notwithstanding, I did indeed make it into CDG as scheduled, and in fact my bag actually rolled out as one of the first three on the carousel. (Granted, that probably meant it was one of the last ones thrown on the plane in Dusseldorf, but I'll take that as perfectly fine under the circumstances.) Upon leaving baggage claim, there was a sign clearly marking which exit to use for the hotel shuttles (2D, exit 9). Unfortunately, the buses were not provided this information, so after being unable to see any hotel buses at all, I hailed a cab, thinking it could not be that difficult or expensive, and I did not want to waste my last few hours in Paris looking for a presumably free ride to a nearby hotel.

I hailed a cab, and though just as in Beauvais I gave the cabbie the exact address and the phone number and the GPS coordinates, he was clueless as to the location. (This guy, however, did not even try punching the numbers in the GPS!) After asking two other cabbies and asking me in broken English to look for the hotel sign, he (actually I) did manage to find the location, and I managed to check in at 7:30 PM, half an hour earlier than I had projected I would.